Purpose The COVID-19 outbreak has imposed extensive shocks embracing all stages of the food supply chain (FSC). Although the magnitude is still unfolding, the FSC responds with remarkable speed, to mitigate the disruptive consequences and sustain operations. This paper aims to investigate how operationalising supply chain agility (SCA) practices has occurred amid the COVID-19 crisis and expectations for how those practices could transform the supply chain in the post-COVID-19 era. Design/methodology/approach Following an exploratory case-based design, this paper examines the various agile responses that three supply chains (meat, fresh vegetables and bread) adopted and elaborate using the dynamic capability (DC) theoretical lens. Findings First, the findings demonstrate how, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, each affected case pursued various agile responses through sensing and seizing capabilities. Sensing includes identifying and assessing the relevant opportunities and threats associated with the specific supply chain context. Seizing involves acquiring, combining and modifying the tangible and intangible resources at the firm and supply chain levels. Second, supply chain transformation is likely if firms and their supply chain develop the sustaining capability to ensure that the desirable changes outlast the crisis. Practical implications This study provides an actionable guide for practitioners to develop agile responses to systemic changes in times of crisis and to sustain favourable changes so as to enable their outlasting of the crisis. Originality/value This study provides a novel and unique perspective on the role of SCA in crisis – in this case, the pandemic. This paper synthesises the empirical stories of the agile responses in the FSC and elaborates on the DC framework, to identify theoretical and practical implications. This paper establishes the sustaining capability as the missing DC capability for enabling transformation in the post-COVID-19 era.

High-throughput, quantitative approaches have enabled the discovery of fundamental principles describing bacterial physiology. These principles provide a foundation for predicting the behavior of biological systems, a widely held aspiration. However, these approaches are often exclusively applied to the best-known model organism, E. coli. In this report, we investigate to what extent quantitative principles discovered in Gram-negative E. coli are applicable to Gram-positive B. subtilis. We found that these two extremely divergent bacterial species employ deeply similar strategies in order to coordinate growth, cell size, and the cell cycle. These similarities mean that the quantitative physiological principles described here can likely provide a beachhead for others who wish to understand additional, less-studied prokaryotes.

The rate-determining step in free radical lipid peroxidation is the propagation of the peroxyl radical, where generally two types of reactions occur: (a) hydrogen-atom transfer (HAT) from a donor to the peroxyl radical; (b) peroxyl radical addition (PRA) to a "CC" double bond. Peroxyl radical clocks have been used to determine the rate constants of HAT reactions (k H ), but no radical clock is available to measure the rate constants of PRA reactions (k add ). In this work, we modified the analytical approach on the linoleate-based peroxyl radical clock to enable the simultaneous measurement of both k H and k add . Compared to the original approach, this new approach involves the use of a strong reducing agent, LiAlH 4 , to completely reduce both HAT and PRAderived products and the relative quantitation of total linoleate oxidation products with or without reduction. The new approach was then applied to measuring the k H and k add values for several series of organic substrates, including para-and meta-substituted styrenes, substituted conjugated dienes, and cyclic alkenes. Furthermore, the k H and k add values for a variety of biologically important lipids were determined for the first time, including conjugated fatty acids, sterols, coenzyme Q10, and lipophilic vitamins, such as vitamins D 3 and A.

A series of boron-functionalized BODIPY dyes with cyano groups were prepared from their corresponding BF2 derivatives using SnCl4/TMSCN at room temperature for 10 min. Replacement of the fluorines by cyano groups reduces the B–N bond lengths, decreases the charge on boron, and causes characteristic [Formula: see text]B NMR chemical shifts. The 4,4[Formula: see text]-dicyano-BODIPYs show significantly enhanced stability to acidic conditions (excess TFA) and, with one exception, enhanced fluorescence quantum yields. Furthermore, the B(CN)2-BODIPYs were non-cytotoxic to HEp2 cells, both in the dark and upon exposure to light (1.5 J/cm[Formula: see text], and rapidly accumulated within cells, localizing mainly in the lysosomes, ER and Golgi.

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The pyr*pur.pyr type of nucleic acid triplex has a purine strand that is Hoogsteen-paired with a parallel pyrimidine strand (pyr*pur pair) and that is Watson-Crick-paired with an antiparallel pyrimidine strand (pur.pyr pair). In most cases, the Watson-Crick pair is more stable than the Hoogsteen pair, although stable formation of DNA Hoogsteen-paired duplexes has been reported. Using oligomer triplexes of repeating d(AG)12 and d(CT)12 or r(CU)12 sequences that were 24 nt long, we found that hybrid RNA*DNA as well as DNA*DNA Hoogsteen-paired strands of triplexes can be more stable than the Watson-Crick-paired strands at low pH. The structures and relative stabilities of these duplexes and triplexes were evaluated by circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy and UV absorption melting studies of triplexes as a function of pH. The CD contributions of Hoogsteen-paired RNA*DNA and DNA*DNA duplexes were found to dominate the CD spectra of the corresponding pyr*pur.pyr triplexes.

The wettability nature of substrates has been found to profoundly influence the surface assembly of monodisperse spherical particles for colloidal suspensions that are dried by evaporation to spontaneously form either periodic or disordered packing arrangements. The self-assembly of spheres has consequences when preparing surface masks for evaporative colloidal lithography. When a droplet of an aqueous suspension of monodisperse latex particles was dried by evaporation on flat substrates that are hydrophilic, a close-packed arrangement was formed spontaneously. However, when a similar aqueous suspension was deposited and dried on relatively hydrophobic substrates such as silicon and glass, a disordered arrangement was produced, revealing that there were negligible regions of hexagonal packing. The wettability of silicon wafers can be rendered to be hydrophilic by certain surface treatments. For example, after ozone exposure, silicon surfaces became hydrophilic as evidenced by changes measured for water contact angles. For silicon surfaces that were exposed to UV/ozone, crystalline arrangements of monodisperse latex spheres were generated with relatively few defects. Such physical or chemical treatments which tailor the wettability of surfaces can be used to improve reproducibility and to lower the density of defects when preparing surface masks for emerging manufacturing processes based on colloidal lithography.